


How My Fucking World Revolves Around Finn Hudson

by raving_liberal



Series: Finn and Puck's Excellent L.A. Adventures [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-27
Updated: 2012-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-06 02:23:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every time Finn calls, Puck swears to himself he's not going to answer, but every time Finn calls, Puck picks up the phone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How My Fucking World Revolves Around Finn Hudson

**Author's Note:**

>   
> 

It doesn’t go like Puck planned, any of it, no matter how many times Puck goes through his mental list that may as well be titled “How My Fucking World Revolves Around Finn Hudson”: 

_Tell him all those things he needs to hear, the things that make him feel good about himself, that other people don’t tell him. Tell him he’s smart, that I need him, can’t do it without him. How often does he hear that? Talk about the money and the opportunity. Put good-looking women in front of him, like some kind of promise. Whatever it takes. Spin a story about the things he AND Rachel could do in LA. Just get him out there. Get him out where I’m going to be, get him out where he’s safer, and we can get all the details figured out after that. We can work on everything else, just get him out of Lima, off the crazy runaway train of Rachel’s vision for their future, and we can_ fix _it._

He really thought, in the end, Finn would say yes. He thought Finn might come to his damn senses and see what a stupid thing he was doing, taking Rachel back after saying he was setting her free, following Rachel to New York, fucking _marrying_ her right out of high school like an idiot after all his big talk about them living their own dreams or whatever stupid thing he came up with. Finn doesn’t come to his senses, though; maybe he never really had any senses to come to to begin with. 

Finn and Rachel get married the last week in July. Even with “all that extra time” as Rachel puts it, it’s still small, smaller even than that bullshit rush-job they were planning at the courthouse before Quinn’s accident, because a few of them in glee club are already gone off to their colleges. Still, Puck can’t avoid getting shoved into a monkey suit and having to stand up there, big stupid fake grin fixed on his face, while he watches his best friend of the last twelve years make the biggest mistake of his life.

When Puck has to leave halfway through the reception to make his flight to LA, he tells them it was the cheapest flight he could find, he had to take it, and even though he’s lying, nobody calls him on it. Before he goes through security, he pops two of the valium he swiped from his ma’s medicine cabinet, and by the time Puck’s plane is in the air, he doesn’t give a shit about Finn Hudson or New York or anything else. 

 

Puck gets the one bedroom apartment. It’s tiny, an open floorplan with a kitchenette and a bathroom with the smallest shower Puck’s ever seen outside of a mobile home, and it smells like oranges from the orange crates he stacks up to use as shelves for his music and movies. He buys a twin size mattress off the back of a truck and sticks it in one corner, a dresser from Goodwill that he puts against the wall, a tiny television that keeps blinking back and forth between color and black and white, and he doesn’t think about Finn. 

Before his first week in LA is over, Puck has lined up four pools, which isn’t a bad start, and scored a job mopping the floors at a bar that calls itself a restaurant, possibly so it can hire guys like Puck, who apparently aren’t old enough to work in bars in California. By the end of his second week, he’s got nine pools and has talked himself into a gig at that same bar, playing guitar for some blues singer chick. He plays the bar on Friday night, doesn’t get home until almost 4am, and at seven-fucking-fifteen that morning, his phone rings.

“It’s seven-fucking-fifteen,” Puck says, by way of greeting. “The fuck is this?”

“It’s 10:15,” Finn’s voice responds. “Why are you so mad?”

Puck puts his pillow over his head, which doesn’t do anything at all to block the sound of the phone he has pressed to his ear or the groan that comes out of him. “West Coast, dumbass. Pacific time.”

“I should get one of those watches that has the different timezones in it.”

“Finn.”

“Then I’ll always know what time it is in LA, right?”

“ _Finn_. What do you _want_?” 

“Oh,” Finn says, softly. “I missed you.”

“You’re married, dumbass. You aren’t allowed to miss me,” Puck says, and he tries to say it all mean and gruff, but that’s not how it comes out. “You aren’t allowed to call me at 7:15, either.”

“I didn’t know,” is all Finn says, though whether it’s about the time difference or not being allowed to miss Puck, Puck isn’t sure.

“Well, _learn_ ,” Puck snaps, and he ends the call. With a low growl of frustration, he slides the phone across the floor, not even looking to see where it ends up, then pulls the pillow down over his head again. Two weeks into the fucking marriage and seven-fucking-fifteen in the morning, and _fuck Finn Hudson_ , that’s what. 

 

Finn calls again three days later and Puck’s not in a much better mood when he answers the phone. He _should_ be happy. He _wants_ to hear Finn’s voice, but for some reason the reality of it just makes him angry. 

So, instead of answering the phone with a hello, Puck answers it with, “What do you want Finn?”

“It’s noon here. What time is it there?”

“Fucking _timezones_ , Hudson. Learn you some.”

“Is it nine? Do they do daylight savings in California? If they don’t, does that mean it’s eight or ten?”

“What do you want, Finn?” Puck sighs. “I’ve got about fifteen minutes before I have to start my pools.”

“So that’s working out, then?” Finn asks. “The pool thing? It’s really happening?”

“Of course, dude. It’s my big dream, right?” Puck snorts at him. “Means it’s gotta come true, just like your big dream’s gonna come true.” The silence on the other end of the line stretches out long enough that Puck thinks they maybe got disconnected. “Finn?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, still here.”

“Your big dream’s gonna come true out there in New York, right? Like we talked about. Just like mine.”

“Yeah,” Finn repeats, more softly. “Just like yours.”

“Look, I’ve gotta go,” Puck says. “Catch you around, okay?”

Finn makes some kind of affirmative noise and Puck ends the call. He doesn’t feel any less like flinging the phone across the room than last time, and he can’t quite figure out why, but he doesn’t have the time to sit around and go all Deep Thoughts on Finn Hudson when he’s got five pools to clean between now and his shift at the restaurant-that’s-really-a-bar. 

Puck likes working hard and he likes working late, likes falling onto his mattress at some crazy hour of the morning, too exhausted to do anything but drop straight into a deep sleep. He’s too tired to think about anybody or anything, and that’s how he wants it. Puck manages to barely think about Finn at all, but every time he thinks he’s maybe, _finally_ gotten the big idiot out of his head for good, the fucking phone rings and it’s Finn.

Finn on the phone, every few days, never at the same time of day, never sure what time it is in LA, always that same weird, lost-sounding voice that makes Puck want to throw his phone on the ground and smash it so he never, ever has to hear it again. 

“It’s 2:30, Finn,” Puck says when he answers the phone. “5:30 your time.”

“I know that,” Finn answers, and yeah, it’s still that weird voice. Fucking Finn Hudson.

“Seems like that’s the only reason you call, dude. To check the time.”

“That’s not the only reason I call.”

“Well, could have fooled me. How’s married life treating you?” Puck’s starting to think Finn has forgotten how to use a phone since he’s been in New York, because these long pauses seems to be part of how Finn talks on the phone now. “Finn? Seriously, dude. You’ve gotta talk _into_ the phone for this to work.”

“I know that,” Finn says. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

“Oh yeah? That’s good to hear.” Not that Puck gives an actual fuck if married life is treating Finn like a king or a box of crap, because that was Finn’s choice to make, not Puck’s, and Finn’s the only one of them who has to live with it. 

“Just, uh. The city’s so big. I feel lo—I mean, I keep getting lost. Turned around.”

“Dude, don’t all the streets run north-south and east-west?” Puck shakes his head, not that Finn can see it. “Only you could get lost in a city with a perfect grid.”

Finn laughs a little, but it sounds strained, and so does his voice when he says, “Guess I should have come to LA, after all, huh? Since I keep getting lost in the big city.”

“LA’s a big city, too, dumbass. You’d be just as lost out here.”

Another of the long pauses before Finn finally answers, “Yeah. I guess.”

Puck doesn’t really have anywhere to be, but he’s really had all of this call that he can take without doing some sort of permanent damage to his phone, so he tells Finn, “Look, I’ve gotta go. We’ll talk some other time, alright?” and hangs up before Finn can answer.

If Finn was even going to answer. 

 

The blues singer chick’s name is Lisa. She’s twenty-five, reasonably hot—by Lima standards, if not by LA standards, anyway—and reminds Puck a little of Santana, without the lesbian thing. She calls him “sweetie” and after he’s been playing guitar for her for almost six weeks, she says to him, “Sweetie, let’s go back to your place.”

“My place is a mattress on the floor and orange crates,” Puck says.

“Then sweetie, let’s go back to _my_ place.”

They do, and the sex is fast and good and doesn’t mean anything special, and Puck’s not even back to his place yet when his phone rings and he sees it’s Finn calling. 

“It’s almost 2am, Finn,” Puck sighs. 

“I know that.”

“That means it’s 5 where you are. Why are you calling me at 5am?”

“It’s been raining a lot here.”

Puck rolls his eyes and makes a rude noise. “You’re calling me at two in the fucking morning, _five_ in the fucking morning your time, to tell me it’s been raining a lot? Dude, have you lost your damn mind?”

“Is it true that it’s always eighty degrees and sunny in Los Angeles?” Finn asks. 

“Nah, that’s just something that we tell the tourists, but really it— _Finn_! Go back to bed with your wife and quit calling me and asking stupid-ass questions at stupid-late hours!”

There’s one of Finn’s long pauses, which Puck knows by now doesn’t mean Finn hung up or anything, just that he’s thinking or doing his Finn-version of thinking, and then Finn finally says, “Yeah, I guess I probably should do that.”

“Yeah. Talk to you later, dude,” Puck says, and ends the call. He doesn’t hear from Finn for over a week, and he can’t decide if he’s bummed or relieved, and decides he’s not either, because it’s not supposed to matter enough for him to feel that strongly about it either way. 

 

The second time Puck and blues chick Lisa have sex, they _do_ go back to Puck’s place, and she doesn’t complain about it smelling like oranges. It lasts longer this time, it’s still good, and they go again before she leaves. Puck’s lying in his rumpled sheets, wishing he were a smoker so he had something to do with himself while he’s waiting to feel tired enough to fall asleep, when his phone rings.

Puck doesn’t even check to see who’s calling. “Hey, Finn.”

“Do you think I made a mistake?”

Pucks sighs. Yeah, he should start smoking, because that’s the kind of shit that really calls for some dramatic smoke exhaling. “Which time, dude? I can think of about twenty times you’ve screwed up, first of which being, it’s three in the morning here. Do you ever sleep?”

“I sleep,” Finn insists, but he voice sure doesn’t sound like it. He sounds tired. More than tired, even. “I do.”

“Yeah, totally convinced me, dude. You sleep. That’s why you keep calling me at this time of night.”

“Puck,” Finn says. “Do you think I made a mistake? Moving to New York.”

“Gotta go where your wife is, dude,” Puck answers, and he’s proud of himself for how much he sounds like he doesn’t care. “Kinda hard to make it work otherwise.”

The Finn-pause goes on so long this time that Puck has to resist the urge to just end the damn call. “Did I make a mistake getting married?” Finn finally asks.

“The hell kind of question is that?” Puck almost growls. “I’m not your fucking shrink, Hudson. If you need one of those, I bet they’ve got plenty of them in New York.” He ends the call without letting Finn say anything else and he doesn’t answer when Finn calls back. He doesn’t answer the next four times Finn calls over the next two days. 

The fourth time Puck and Lisa the blues chick have sex, Puck yells “Finn” when he comes, and afterwards, Lisa says, “Sweetie, is there something you need to talk about?”

Puck’s never said the wrong name in bed, and considering the number of women he’s slept with, that’s pretty damn impressive, and having his first slip up be Finn Hudson? No, that’s not something he needs to talk about, not now, not ever. He doesn’t stick around that night, and the next time Lisa asks him if he wants to come home with her, sweetie, Puck says no.

 

Puck holds out for over a week, refusing to answer Finn’s calls, but Finn doesn’t seem to get the message and keeps on calling. Puck cleans pools and ignores Finn’s calls, and works at the bar and ignores Finn’s calls, and plays guitar and ignores Finn’s calls, and jerks off and ignores Finn’s calls. When the phone rings at 3am after a Friday night show, Puck finally answers the phone.

“Finn.”

“How can you tell the difference between loving somebody and being in love with them?”

“ _Finn_.”

“I know it’s late,” Finn says. “It’s 3am there. The timezone thing. I figured it out.”

“Finn! This shit has to stop. You can’t keep calling me like this,” Puck says. “I can’t do this.”

“I just thought... I don’t know. I thought you’d know the answer.”

“You want to know the answer? Is that really what you to know?” Puck asks. He’s getting louder and angrier, and he doesn’t even care at this point. Finn Hudson and his stupid fucking questions. “The answer is you figure that shit out before you get married, and if you don’t know then you don’t _get_ married, and you don’t run off the New York, and you don’t fucking call _me_ to ask questions about love, asshole.” 

“Puck,” Finn says, softly, but Puck cuts him off before he can say anything else.

“No. This shit is over. We are done. Call me when you and Rachel are expecting your first kid and I’ll wish you mazel tov, but otherwise, don’t fucking call me anymore, Finn. I mean it.”

Silence on the other end, and Puck doesn’t care if it’s Finn thinking or Finn hanging up or Finn waiting for Puck to say something else. He’s done. Puck ends the call and throws his phone across the room, throws himself down on his bed and screams into the mattress. 

Finn doesn’t call again for two months. 

 

It’s 4:30 in the morning and it’s raining for the first time since Puck moved to LA, and when the phone rings, Puck knows it can’t be anybody else but Finn. For about three rings, he thinks he’s not going to answer it—it’s 4:30, Puck’s barely been asleep for an hour, and he told Finn not to call—but in the end, he thumbs the phone on and croaks out, “Finn? It’s 4:30.”

“I know.”

“No, dude, it’s 4:30 _here_.”

“I know,” Finn repeats. “I’m at the airport.”

“Good for you, dude. Going on a nice trip somewhere, that’s great. Why are you calling me? I told you not to call me.”

“No, Puck. I’m at the airport in LA.”

This time, Puck’s the one who can’t answer, and the silence stretches and grows while he tries to come up with some kind of appropriate response. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth and nothing comes out but this weird puff of air.

“Puck? Hello?”

“Yeah,” Puck forces himself to say. “Still here.”

“Uh. So, can you give me your address? I’ll take a cab to your place.”

Puck rubs his hand over his face. Idiot. “Finn, dude, LA is huge. It’s gonna cost you a fortune to take a taxi all the way to where I am. I’ll come get you. It’s gonna take... a while. Get some coffee, okay?”

“Okay,” Finn says. “You promise you’re coming to get me?”

“Yeah, dumbass,” Puck sighs. “I promise. Just stay there. Don’t talk to strangers.”

“Okay,” Finn repeats. “I won’t.”

“Good. You better not,” Puck says, and ends the call. Fuck. Fucking _fuck_. Finn in LA is what Puck wanted months ago, and if he’s being honest with himself, what he still wants, but why? Why is Finn in LA? 

Puck still stinks like cigarettes from the bar, because he crashed out as soon as he got home, so he decides he can take a shower. Finn can wait a few more minutes after months of Puck waiting on him. Puck takes time to watch his hair and face, and when he gets out of the shower he looks at his face critically, before deciding, fuck it, Finn doesn’t get to have a clean-shaven chauffeur. He can just take what he gets. 

Since it’s not even 5am yet, Puck gets to the airport faster than he’d expected, and finds Finn sitting on a bench outside of baggage claim, looking like he’s not sure why he’s there or how he got there. Finn has a carry-on slung over his shoulder, a duffel bag at his feet, and something in his eyes that makes Puck rethink his immediate plan of demanding to know why the hell Finn just showed up in LA unannounced at 4:30 in the damn morning. 

“Just come get in the car, jackass,” Puck sighs, and Finn does, throwing his bag in the back and holding his carry-on in his lap after he’s buckled into the passenger seat. 

They don’t talk on the drive back to Puck’s place, or as they’re walking into the building, or after Finn sits down on the edge of Puck’s mattress. If Finn sounded tired on the phone, he looks utterly exhausted in person. He’s dropped weight, too, is almost scrawny in a way he hasn’t been since middle school. The dark circles under his eyes confirm what Puck had been suspecting all along, that Finn and sleep have only a passing acquaintance these days. Puck sits down next to Finn. 

“Well,” Puck says, after they’ve sat there in silence for a good ten or fifteen minute. “You look like shit.”

“I’m sorry,” Finn whispers. “I’m so sorry.” He lets his head drop into his hands, his shoulders sagging. 

“Hey,” Puck says, giving Finn’s shoulder a few awkward pats before he lets his hand rest there. “Anybody would look like shit after a redeye from New York to LA, dude, it’s fine.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

Puck sighs and squeezes Finn’s shoulder. “Yeah, I know. So, now what?”

“Honestly?” Finn asks. “I have no clue. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t even know if I’m supposed to be here.”

“Rachel kick you out?” Puck snorts.

“No. She didn’t do that,” Finn says. 

“You have a fight?”

“No.”

“Then why are you here, Finn?”

“I missed you,” Finn says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and Puck sighs again.

“I miss a lot of people, dude, but I don’t show up unannounced at their airports at 4:30 in the morning.”

Finn makes that face he makes, the one that means he’s thinking really hard and trying to come up with something. “So... so, I talked to Kurt.”

It’s not the something that Puck expected but he rolls with it anyway. “Alright. So, you talked to Kurt. He’s doing okay?”

“No. I mean, yeah, he is, but no, I talked to him, you know. We talked. You know? About this. All of this stuff, and here, and there, and you. You know?” Finn makes some sort of hand gesture that has no meaning to Puck, but then, most of Finn’s words don’t have a lot of meaning to Puck right now, either. They may not have much meaning to Finn, even, who is so tired he looks drunk or stoned. 

“Dude,” Puck says softly. “When’s the last time you slept?”

Finn shakes his head. “I don’t know. Day? Two days?” His mouth moves into the ghost-version of that dumb half-smile and he shrugs. “I’m not sure what day is today. I knew it was 4:30, though.”

Puck exhales in a long sigh. “Yeah, you did. You learned those timezones, just like you said.” He slides his hand to the middle of Finn’s back, between his shoulder blades, and rubs a little circle. “Look, Finn, you’re exhausted. Why don’t you get a few hours of sleep and you can try to explain everything later, alright?”

“I tried to find a hotel, but I didn’t know where you lived,” Finn says. “LA has so many hotels.” He sounds so damn apologetic about it, but Puck doesn’t dare let it hurt, because he doesn’t know for sure why Finn is there, and he can’t hurt anymore over Finn.

“Just lie down,” Puck says, sighing again. Finn lies does in the middle of Puck’s mattress, curled up on his side, and Puck gives him a gentle shove toward the far side. “And scoot over so I have some room, yeah? You New York City people are supposed to be used to living in tiny spaces.” 

Puck lies down on his back on the remaining sliver of bed and closes his eyes, but before he falls asleep, he hears Finn whisper, “I’m not New York City people.”

 

When Puck wakes up, it’s noon and sunlight streams through the window, lighting up the whole bed. Finn doesn’t seem to notice, still dead to the world. He has one long arm draped across Puck’s chest, and when Puck tries to move it, Finn grips him more tightly. Puck gives up and relaxes back against the bed in the pool of sunshine, listening to Finn’s weird, whistley sleep-breathing.

Finn doesn’t move for another hour. When he does, he stretches and pulls Puck against him, snuffling the top of Puck’s head like this is normal, like this is just a thing they do, sleep together on the same twin mattress on Puck’s floor. 

“I really did it this time,” Finn finally says, murmuring into the top of Puck’s head. He doesn’t let go of Puck now that he’s awake, though.

“Oh yeah?” Puck asks. “Really did what?”

“Got on the plane,” Finn says. 

“Yeah, you got on the plane,” Puck agrees. “That’s why I had to pick your ass up at 5am.”

“I almost did it a bunch of times. Every time I called you,” Finn says softly. “Every single time, I almost went to the airport, but I never did.”

Puck rests his hand on the Finn-arm draped across his chest. “You did it this time, though.” 

He can tell Finn nods, because Finn’s face moves against the top of Puck’s head. “Puck,” Finn begins. “I...”

Puck rolls in Finn’s grip so he’s on his back and can look at Finn’s face. Some of the exhaustion has faded, but the worried look and the ghost smile are still there. “Hey,” Puck says. “You did it this time, alright? I’ll make us some coffee and we’ll figure this out.”

Finn nods and lets go of Puck, and while Puck runs water and scoops up grounds in the kitchenette, Finn just lies there on the mattress like a big, dumb puppy, eyes following Puck around the room. Puck only has one coffee mug, so he fills it for Finn, dumping two big spoons of sugar into it. 

“Sit up, dumbass,” Puck says, holding out the mug of coffee. “Drink your fucking coffee so I can have some.”

Finn sits up and takes the mug, sipping it tentatively at first. After he’s drained the mug, he hands it back over to Puck, who pours himself a cup and then sits down next to Finn. Finn shifts in place, moving his arms oddly, like he’s not sure what to do with them. He sits too stiffly and Puck resists the urge to put an arm around him.

Finally, Finn says, “I talked to Kurt.”

“So you said this morning,” Puck answers mildly. 

Finn takes a deep breath before he continues. “I told him I wasn’t sure about... well, anything. I told him that I thought marrying Rachel might have been a bad idea, and that coming to New York might have been a bad idea, and that I sometimes wished that I’d just gone out to California with you. That I thought I might have been happier. I told him I was thinking about doing that.”

“Yeah? And what did Kurt have to say about that?” Puck asks.

“He called me an idiot,” Finn says, a small smile forming on his face.

Puck snorts. “Well, yeah, dude. I mean, leaving your wife and your nice New York life to run off and clean pools in LA is pretty damn idiotic.”

Finn starts to laugh, but it’s not the bitter, lost sounding laughter Puck’s been hearing on the phone for the last few months. It’s clear and sweet, and Finn shakes his head as he laughs. “No, stupid. He said I was an idiot for not going with you to begin with.”

Something in Puck’s chest seems to loosen, like a knot he didn’t even know he had tied up in there. “Yeah?” Puck says, again. “So, uh. What do you think about that?”

“Kurt’s _smart_ , dude,” Finn answers. “If he says I’m an idiot for not being here, I figured here was probably where I oughta be.”

“Well, you’re here. So now what?”

“I don’t know. I only planned it as far as the plane,” Finn confesses. “I don’t know what happens now. I just know that this is where I want to be.”

“In LA?” Puck asks. 

“With you,” Finn says. He shrugs once. “So maybe we just start with that and we figure out the rest of it as we go?”

“We do, huh?” Puck asks. “I mean, you just show up like that, out of nowhere, and plop yourself down in the middle of my life, and we just... figure it out as we go? Dude, does my world revolve around you?”

Finn looks puzzled, but one of the corners of his mouth starts to tug upward into that stupid lopsided grin. “Does it?”

A slow smile spreads across Puck’s face and he shakes his head slowly. “Well, shit. It does, doesn’t it?” He leans towards Finn and lets their lips brush together, just barely, both of them grinning like fools. “It really, really does.”


End file.
